SBF’s Family, Friends Fight Evil ‘Freak’ Image in Leniency Pleas

Sam Bankman-Fried’s family and friends flooded the judge who will sentence the FTX co-founder next month with pleas for leniency, arguing that his public image as a “freak with evil intentions” was dead wrong.

More than two dozen people filed letters to accompany the sentencing recommendation submitted by Bankman-Fried’s lawyers late Tuesday night. The lawyers asked that he be given no more than 6 1/2 years in prison, though he potentially faces decades behind bars when US District Judge Lewis Kaplan sentences him for fraud and other counts on March 28.

Sam Bankman-Fried

Photographer: Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg

Such letters are typically submitted by defendants’ ...